Wednesday, March 15, 2006

14 Comments:

How unbelievably depressing. The entire first page of "most recommended comments" amount to "send 'em home."

About three years back the Indy did a great front page filled with stats comparing the number of asylum seekers we take with the number people think we do. I'd hope they'd repeat the gesture, except that since they started doing the campaigning splash every day noone would notice it this time.

The most awful thing is the assumption that this group of people will be a "burden" on poor hardworking British taxpayers. In fact, if they were given leave to remain, they'd just be any old group of migrant workers, probably amongst those like Eastern Europeans, whom employers now prefer to employ because they work harder, complain less, and don't mind really shit wages - see The Times at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2086910,00.html (can't be bothered to do html, sorry). Migrant workers contribute to the economy, you stupid racist people, is what I want to shout. An amnesty is what I think should be given - and I said so on my blog yesterday morning.

If you want a brain haemorrage leading to stroke and permament disability click on some of the names that make the comments. Since when did listening to your base gut feelings and ignoring the facts becaome a philosophy?

I see where you're coming from, and the bile is a bit depressing, but the question asks about *failed* asylum seekers. Now while I accept that the current decision-making process is flawed, let's assume for one instant that it worked perfectly, and these people have been allowed to enter the country solely on the premise that they are fleeing for their life, and this has proven not to be the case. What should be done with them ?

Such is the general tenor of the comments. And the problem with this is...?

"they work harder, complain less, and don't mind really shit wages"

Yes, this is always the argument, of course. Personally, the idea that we should welcome migrants because they are happy to do things that we wouldn't is one that I find slightly distasteful.

It also completely ignores the argument that, were we to have no migrants, then the wages for these low-level jobs would have to rise, for these jobs still need to be done. So, migrants depress wages for natives.

Of course, the problem with the entire asylum-seeker (failed or otherwise) and immigrant debate is that it's rarely based on a full understanding of the actual facts. I certainly wouldn't deny that there is a proportion of asylum seekers who are "bogus". What that percentage actually is, I have no idea. But I doubt it's high enough to warrant the levels of anger and resentment that seem to exist.

When it comes to this, all I do know is two things:

1) It's bloody hard to find out the precise circumstances surrounding a particular asylum seeker, simply thanks to the nature of the thing. A lot of the time they'll have little documentation, and officials will have little more to go on than their word. This makes investigation of their genuine need for asylum incredibly hard - not least because to find out if their story is true inivestigation in their country of origin would be necessary, and if they've fled for political reasons, the authorities in their home states are hardly likely to be co-operative, and could well feed false information to force their return. As such, you can't ensure that they're genuine before they arrive, and you certainly can't find out enough to "send 'em back" within a couple of weeks, as a lot of the people in that BBC thing seem to want.

2) The majority of cross-border migrantion seems to be thanks to a desire for economic advancement, which seems to be basis of the major rational arguments both for and against, depending on which particular statistics or generalisations you want to use. These arguments, however, should be kept entirely separate from the asylum debate, as they cloud the issue far too much to be useful.

Devil's kitchen:"It also completely ignores the argument that, were we to have no migrants, then the wages for these low-level jobs would have to rise, for these jobs still need to be done. So, migrants depress wages for natives."

But my understanding is that, if the minimum wage jobs are done by migrants then domestic workers will generally do higher productivity work, meaning the economy grows faster. If a large part of the domestic workforce is busy working as cleaners, then the economy is likely to be weaker.

This is why those countries - the UK, Ireland, Sweden - that have opened their borders to eastern Europeans haven't experienced sudden unemployment increases, and have actually done pretty well out of it.

All that said, this is an argument for the kind of temporary migrant labour allowed by the EU, rather than anything to do with asylum at all.

This is a bit of a cliche with regard to Have Your Say: the most sensible posts generally start to turn up on page 3. This case is even worse: actual thoughtful comments start on page 7, and a lot of what's before is ripped straight from BNP propaganda and (even worse) received opinion. Ugh.

It's a bit odd that we're refusing asylum to people from places that we then admit we can't send them back to because it's totally unsafe (e.g. Zimbabwe, Somalia, Iraq etc.) With that taken into account, we have to conclude that asylum isn't being given to people who need it perhaps because of the result of xenophobic reactions like those in this HyS thread.

I mean, really, we go to all this trouble to build up a great economy like ours by exploiting cheap foreign labour and biased trade regulations, and then they have the temerity to come over here and try to sponge off our welfare state. It's despicable.

It's time for DNA screening and gunships in the Channel, or the world will end...